English & languagesReviewed 8 Oct 2026

GCSE Japanese specification

GCSE Japanese is about understanding and using Japanese in all four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. It is built on the DfE's modern foreign languages subject content (2015), which still applies to every language but French, German and Spanish, and the qualification sets its own grammar, vocabulary and kanji: students read and write hiragana and katakana and learn 200 kanji, 76 of them at Foundation.

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How it's assessed
Tiered (Foundation, grades 1 to 5; Higher, grades 4 to 9, with an allowed grade 3), linear. A student sits all four papers at the same tier, in the same series.

Four papers, Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing, each worth 25% and all sat at the same tier in the same series. Every question and instruction is in English, as the DfE requires for a language written in kanji, and listening and reading are answered in English. Each listening extract is heard twice; Reading ends with a translation into English and Writing with a translation into Japanese. Writing lengths are recommended in characters, romaji is never credited, and using kanji is rewarded. Speaking is conducted and recorded by the teacher and marked by Pearson. The assessment objectives are the four skills: AO1 listening, AO2 speaking, AO3 reading and AO4 writing, 25% each.

High-level topics

The main areas of content and what a student is expected to know and do.

Theme 1: Identity and culture

Who am I (relationships, when I was younger, friends and family, role models), daily life (customs, food and drink, shopping, social media and technology) and cultural life (celebrations and festivals, reading, music, sport, film and television). Every theme is studied both in the student's own country and in Japan.

Pearson Edexcel 1JA0 specification, issue 5: themes and topics
Theme 2: Local area, holiday and travel

Holidays (preferences, experiences and destinations), travel and tourist transactions (travel and accommodation, asking for help, directions, eating out, shopping) and town, region and country (weather, places to see, things to do).

Pearson Edexcel 1JA0 specification, issue 5: themes and topics
Theme 3: School

What school is like (types of school, the school day, subjects, rules and pressures, celebrating success) and school activities (trips, events and exchanges).

Pearson Edexcel 1JA0 specification, issue 5: themes and topics
Theme 4: Future aspirations, study and work

Using languages beyond the classroom (relationships, travel, employment), ambitions (further study, volunteering, training) and work (jobs, careers and professions).

Pearson Edexcel 1JA0 specification, issue 5: themes and topics
Theme 5: International and global dimension

Bringing the world together (sports events, music events, campaigns and good causes) and environmental issues (being green, access to natural resources). The role-play never comes from this theme.

Pearson Edexcel 1JA0 specification, issue 5: themes and topics
Grammar

At Foundation the polite style: です and its negative and past, い and な adjectives, the ます forms with ましょう and たいです, the て-form and what it builds, ある and いる, あげる and もらう, question words, こそあど, the particles, numbers, counters and dates. Higher adds the plain forms, adjective negatives, the ない and た forms and what they build (たり, たことがあります, たほうがいい), the dictionary form with 前に, つもり and ことができます, ながら, …し…し and と思います.

Pearson Edexcel 1JA0 specification, issue 5: grammar
Scripts, kanji and vocabulary

Hiragana and katakana at both tiers, and 200 kanji: 76 at Foundation and 124 more at Higher. Reading texts use kanji only from the candidate's set, so the opening Foundation questions are in kana alone and kanji grow through the paper. The vocabulary is set in kana, about 1,260 entries at Foundation and 470 more at Higher, and students also meet common words that are not on it.

Pearson Edexcel 1JA0 specification, issue 5: vocabulary and kanji

Exam boards

The awarding bodies that offer this qualification, how their papers are structured, and what's distinctive about each - with links to the official specification.

Pearson Edexcel
Spec 1JA0

Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9–1) Japanese

Papers & assessment

First taught September 2017, first examined June 2019. Four papers, 25% each, all at one tier: Paper 1 Listening (Foundation 35 minutes, Higher 45, each including 5 minutes' reading time; 50 marks; each extract heard twice); Paper 2 Speaking (70 marks; Foundation 7 to 9 minutes, Higher 10 to 12, plus 12 minutes' preparation; a role-play (10), a picture-based task (24) and a conversation (36)); Paper 3 Reading (Foundation 50 minutes, Higher 1 hour 5 minutes; 50 marks; comprehension, then a translation into English); Paper 4 Writing (Foundation 1 hour 20 minutes: a photo task of 25 to 50 characters (12), a formal task of 50 to 80 characters (16), a familiar task of 160 to 180 characters (20) and a translation into Japanese of five sentences (12); Higher 1 hour 25 minutes: the familiar task (20), a formal task of 260 to 300 characters (28) and a translation of a paragraph (12); 60 marks).

What's distinctive

The only GCSE Japanese in England. Every question and instruction is in English. Papers carry different raw marks (50, 70, 50 and 60) but count 25% each, and grade boundaries are set on the subject total out of 280; Pearson publishes no paper-level boundaries. In the speaking test the conversation opens on a topic the student chose two weeks before. In writing, romaji earns nothing and kanji use is rewarded.

Specification

Specification (web)Pearson Edexcel 1JA0 specification, issue 5 (October 2022)Pearson Edexcel 1JA0 sample assessment materials, issue 3 (December 2022)

Past papers & mark schemes

Past papers & sample assessmentsMark schemesExaminer reports
How the boards differ

Pearson Edexcel is the only board offering GCSE Japanese in England: AQA, OCR and Eduqas do not set it, so there is no board to choose. It follows the DfE's 2015 subject content, not the 2022 content that reformed French, German and Spanish, so it has no dictation, no reading aloud and no sound-spelling list, and its assessment objectives are the four skills themselves.

Original sources

Straight from the awarding bodies - the specifications these summaries are drawn from.

DfE, Modern foreign languages: GCSE subject contentPearson Edexcel GCSE Japanese (2017)

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